there are a bunch of different brands of them out there. it's neat. it's also interesting and complicated and maybe quandary inducing when you consider people are starting to build things with 3d printers. one of the things people are already starting to make is a gun. if you think abts a gun as being a car, then the engine and the drive train, the part that makes it go, the e kwif length of that in the gun is the part called the lower register. it's the part of the gun that's registered and regulated even if all the other parts of the gun can be bought, just as if they were pieces of plumbing. but the lower receiver -- i said lower register before, the lower receiver is the guts of the gun. it is the heart of the thing. and people have started to make lower receivers for ak-47 style weapons at home using a file that you can down load on the internet.

you can actually down load it right here. i have one on my computer. it makes me wonder about the next time nbc comes and checks my computer. this is what happens when a person fits a lower receiver on a gun that is not regulated when they printed it with a 3d printer. this is the video they released of themselves firing bullets out of it. as you can see, the 3d gun failed and busted apart after it fired about six rounds, which makes it yes, a gun, but the technical term for what kind of gun it is is it is a crappy gun because it blew apart. but this kind of thing is not going to stay a crappy gun for long. not when you can get this far with stuff you can find around the house. for all the work that has gone into thinking about who is allowed to have a gun in america and where you can buy one and what kinds of guns people are allowed to have, that all kind of goes out the window. people can just down load their chosen weapon at home and have

it made manifests at their desk, as a fully functioning real-life weapon. we are not far off of that. what's that going to do to work on laws. we have faced technological chaks to thinking about guns before. in the late 1980s, advances made it seem inevitable that gunman ewe factturer firms, like glock, for example, would start making fully plastic weapons. and since metal detectors and x-ray machines were and are a major part of how we keep guns out of places that they are not allowed to be in this country, the u.s. congress in 1988 passed something called the undetectable firearms act. it said basically, your gun has to be detektble in an x-ray scanner. it has to have the equivalent x-ray signature of 3.7 ounces of stain res steel, even if you take out the magazine and the stock and the grips. even with those parts taken off, the remaining guts of the gun need to have a substantial metal

component. so they will be seen on an x-ray machine. because of that law, we do not have fully plastic guns. that law was first passed in 1988. it was not particularly controversial. the vote in the house on that was 413 to 4. and president ronald reagan signed it. and tyranny was not unleashed upon the land. it is not controversial now that it is illegal to manufacture or sell a gun in the united states that is built to evade detection by standard means. we don't have plastic guns. we banned plastic guns. the ban has been renewed several times since. it is up for renewal again next year. when it comes up for renewal next year. rjs changing laws about guns in this country.

it's always said to be impossible. but, over and over again, it proves to not be impossible. i mean, soldiers use fully automatic machine guns in battle all ovlt time, right? there are millions of these weapons in circulation. but they are comparatively rare in u.s. instances of civilian gun crime. it's not that they never turn up, but they're comparatively rare. semi-automatic weapons, not so much. but fully automatic weapons, yes. that's because of federal regulation. also, two years before president reagan signed the plastic gun ban, he signed a ban on civilian sales or use of armor-peerszing you will bullets. bullets that are designed to penetrate body armor. also in 1993, president clinton signed a bill named for the john hinkley tried to assassinate him. the brady bill instituted a federal background check system for people buying guns. yes, there are plenty of loopholes. but the system didn't exist at

all before the brady bill made it so in 1993. they said it couldn't be doenl. it was done. then, the year after that, another step. the assault weapons ban. >> democratic sponsors ofrt crime bill expect that president clinton will take a major role in making sure the final bill bans semi-automaltic assault weapons. as nbc's pete williams tells us tonight, this is the major, unresolved issue and it is a big one. >> they're called semi-automaltic weapons. each pull of the trigger fires one bullet. americans own about a million of them. but they've been used in some especially deadly shootings, like this one last july at a san francisco law firm that killed eight. that led a california senator to propose a ban on 19 types of semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. that's now in the senate crime bill. it targets weapons that have detachable clips for bullets, folding or telescoping stops and

such features as bayonet mounts. >> the bill sponsor was successful. the bill became law. the bill's sponsor was senator diane feinstein of california. we, as a country, decided to let it expire. remember how i said the vote on the ban on plastic guns back in the 80s was a very lopsided vote. it was 413 votes in favor and onld four votes against? dick cheney was one of the four designed to slip by airport x-ray machines when he was in the congress. he also voted against the reagan ban on bullets designed to

pierce body armor. and when the assault ban came up in 194, bush and cheney made sure it expired. this year, she said she's going to bring the assault weapons ban back. >> the same bill will be introduced in the house, a bill to ban assault weapons. it will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession, not retro actively, but perspectively. and it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips. of more than 10 bullets. so there will be a bill, we've been working on it now for a year. we've tried to take my bill from '94 to 2004. and perfect it. we believe we have. we exempt over 900 specific weapons that will not fall under the bill. . but the purpose of this bill is

to get just what mayor bloomberg said weapons of war off the streets. >> what makes you think you can pass it out? >> i'll tell you what happened back in '93 when i told joe biden who was chairman of the judiciary committee that i was going to move this as an amendment on the crime bill, he laughed at me. he said you're new here. wait until you learn. we got it through the senate. we got it through the housz. the white house came alive and the housz of representatives and the clinton administration helped. the bill was passed and the president signed it. it can be done. >> it can be done. every time something happens to reform gun laws in this country, there's the sense of marvel. they said it couldn't be done, but look what we were able to do. it can be doenl. it has been done. it's been done a lot. the biggest barrier to changing gun laws now in the wake of this latest massacre in newtown connecticut, with 26 people

being dead and the big majority of nra members in favor of at least starter reforms to our gun laws, the biggest barrier to reforming our laws now may just be the pervasive common wisdom that it's not even worth it to try. modern history defies that common wisdom. but it persists. it persists, maybe. now, the last time we talked on the show about the long, long and long lost modern history and bipart san gun reforms was in the wake of the tucson shooting this past weekend. and in the wake of that shooting, the tucson shooting, this was the general assessment. gun control dead. a nonstarter. shootings unlikely to change laws. don't expect any changes. that was our random survey of the headlines last january after the tucson shootings. at least if you asked the beltway shooting gods.

now it seems like the common wisdom may be less certain. look at the headlines now. and it's more like this. debate on gun con trom is revived. lawmakers call for tougher gun laws in wake of new town massacre. gun control debate simmers after sandy hook massa skrrks re. nobody is saying it's going to be easy for our country to reform its gun laws in the wake of this latest massacre by someone wielding weapons for combat. nobody says it's going to be easy. but anybody saying it will be impossible is either spinning you or they are not paying attention. history proves the change is possible. history proves that change is the only thing that is inevitable. joining us now is the mayor of newark, new jersey, my friend, corey booker. he's also the member of the coalition of mayors against guns. >> so great to have you. we've had this conversation before and i'm glad to be back. >> yeah, we've had this conversation in our personal lives but we have this

conversation in public whenever there is another horrible incident like this. how much do you think national -- the sense of national calamity and heart ache changes what is politically feasible right now? >> i think it changes it dramatically. i just want to point out that this is a gut wrenching tragedy. but every single day, we have 30 people that are murdered by gunfire. countless others that remain wounded, paralyzed by guns. i see it on the front lines in my cities and other cities across america. the urgen sill is there. and now, hopefully, more people are seefing if you don't solve this problem, it's going to continue to pop up around our country. and this is the beauty of it in my opinion. this is almost the el ganls of it. that the majority of americans, the majority of gun owners, the overall majority of members agree on sensible gun laws that will make a dramatic difference. 74% of nra members agree with most of us that if you have a criminal conviction, that criminals should not be able to buy guns.

and even at higher levels, when you think about the reality, that if you are a suspected terrorist in america, you can go to the secondary gun market and buy a weapon and conduct the kind of terrorism we saw in mumbai which was doenl with automatic and semi-at mautic weapons. this is the call of our country. to do what the overall majority thinks is right. one out of every two women murdered with a gun are murdered by an intimate, by someone that they know well. that's why on the federal register that they do not allow people who are domestic violence perpetrators to buy guns. but that i have can still buy guns, a domestic violence perpetrator can buy a gun on the secondary market. the percentage of women murdered has gone down 40%. it makes a difference.

we can save lives if we just do what we all agree, including gun owners, agree should be done. >> do you feel -- making the case that policy makes a dimpblsz is a -- actually contested and emotional point to me. we all look at -- i mean, we're all looking for something that's going to be an easy solution to a complicated problem. and there's so many things about potential fix to the gun laws that would not have stopped this particular crime, for example, the way that these particular guns were attained, the fact that this young man seems to have gotten them from his mother and had them all licensed. but now we're in a situation where we've had so many of these incidents, we can't treet them like individual, unrelalted incidents that can't be tackled because they all have individual circumstances. there's a pattern. >> exactly. this is not a one quick flip. but if we really analyzed this issue, and i think cleared the table of what we all agreed on. let me give you an example. people with mental health you

shall shoes with states registering so that they cannot buy guns. the federal government started that off. they don't have the power through the tenth amendment to compel states to do that. so right now, there's 19 states with less than a hundred people in their entire states that are registered with people that should not be sold guns because of mental health issues. some states are not being affirmative. we all agree that someone has a mental health kwon digs or a severe mental health condition, should not by gunnings. but it's going to take someone moving our policy. >> do you think it's more likely that we'll have advances, reforms of our gun laws, at the local level and at the state level thanl we'll have it at the federal level? >> i think courage is called for at every level. there are things the federal government neepds to do that will help me in my city, my local laws or my state laws will not accomplish. and just like with getting everybody to have a common speed limit around the country, the government couldn't mandate that. but they could create carrots and sticks, highway funding and the like.

so we need courage and leadership for our leaders to not wait for the national sentiment, but to get out in front and begin to lead along the lines of common sense. that's what's being called for right now in our country. and it will save lives. what are some of the things that you have tried in newark that you've had high hopes for or success? >> so understand this. the overwhelming majority of my gun crimes and gun crimes committed in america are done by people who get guns illegally. by people who get guns in the secondary market. that's what i said before. about 40% of our guns are being sold in secondary markets. that's how the give ups are coming into cities like mine. so by stating shutting down markets, where, again, the majority of gun owners, our republican pollster to poll gun owners, 74% of nra members, 82

pnt believe that these secondary markets should be stopped from selling to people without criminal background checks. if we shut that down, the flow of weapons into camden, philly, new york, new haich, that flow of weapons into these streets, many of them coming to the south where they have secondary markets that are thriving, they would stop and dry up. so on the local level, this is what mayors get so frustrated about. we are pouring incredible amounts of money, almost my entire property tax base, forget about the resz of government, is being used for public safety purposes. plr police, more cameras. i'm doing everything right now, i've got a woman with a caliber, she were melting down seize ds weapons and selling them as jewelry in order to get money for more gun buy backs. you name it, id am trying it. but without state and federal laws changes, many mayors are fighting an uphill battle and won't be able to stop the levels

of violence in america to the extent that we want. this is a moment and it neepds leadership to seize it at every leflt of government. >> you hooked me up with a link. >> caliber is the name of it. >>. >> it just hit me. right there. >> a ghood percentage of the profits are going to gun buy back programs in my city. marriage equality is moving, we need leadership on all of these issues. we need politicians to tell the truth about what needs to be done to make our nations more equal and safer. >> thank you, matt. great to see you. corey booker, the mayor of newark, new jersey. still lots to come on president obama's response and a local response in newtown. lots ahead, stay with us. since i've lost weight i have so much more energy than i used to,

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today, connecticut investigators looking into the n newtown school shooting. the shooter did not leave behind a note or a letter. they also say the hard drive had been removed and severely damaged as if it had been smashed with a hammer, so say the police. according to the washington post, the shooter had no social media profile. one former classmate said he had been home schooled for a time before attending the local high school. but, again, the investigation to the shooter is on going and a complete profile may not emerge

for days or weeks yet. investigators hope to learn as much as they can by learning of the survivors of the massacre. today, we learned that two adults survived friday's shooting instead of the one that was previously reported. also, contrary to some earlier ror reports, a state police spokesperson says the shooter had no connection to the school either to his mother or to himself. sandy hook elementary school is closed indefinitely. school officials say it's unclear if the school will ever reopen. moving trucks were seen outside the school this morning. moving furniture and supplies to a vacant school in a neighboring town. in newtown today, the first two funerals for victims, both of them 6-year-old boys, noa noah pozner and jack pinto. jack was buried in a new york giants football jersey. victor cruz had the boy's name

written on his cleats for yesterday's game. connecticut's governor unvailed a plan to memorialize all of the victims on friday. the governor asking for churches to ring their bells 26 times on friday one week after the shooting began at sandy hook. in washington, the house today held a moment of silence before it began its evening session. connecticut's dell graegation h vigil. he brought to the floor a resolution honoring the teachers, the first responders, the doctors and others in connecticut afekted by the ma srksz sacre. senator e leblgt chris murphy is going to be our guest tonight for the interview. that's next. (announcer) when subaru owners look in the mirror,

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the town of newtown connecticut is in the fifth congressional digs trikt in that state. which makes the congressman congressman chris murphy. congressman murphy was just elected senator last month. he will be sworn in to the upper chamber in january. senator elect chris murphy joins us. thank you for being with us. >> it's nice to be with you. >> the whole country's heart is bound up in your congressional district right now, bound up in this town. what can you tell us about your experience in this last few days in newtown. what do you think about what's going on in newtown that maybe isn't translating to the national stage as the whole country looks toward that town. >> yeah, i've had the honor of

representing newtown for the last six years. at some level, i relate to this like everyone else does. i have a four-year-old son that i dropped off at school on friday morning. a few hours later, i saw him with a big smile on his face. there are 20 sets of parents that dropped his kids off that same friday morning and that was the last day i ever saw of them. newtown is a small town. it's really the quintessential new england village. it's got a labor day parade that runs through the center of town. the biggest one in the state. every church group and civic group and religious group. they spend half the year getting ready for that parade. they take a lot of pride in it. it's a really close knit town. that makes this grieving process even worse. this is a community school. so every single kid who was killed on friday comes from a handful of neighborhoods. and so everyone knows these families. but, you know, that also points forward to how newtown is going to survive. because it is so close.

because the process of grieving has happened through sthou sands of small acts of humanity that have occurred in the fire house in neighborhoods and churches. so the smallness of the town makes it hurt everyone more. but how close knit this community is sort of points the way to how we're going to survive. >> obviously, there's no way to help in the way that help needs to be done. the only kind of help that would matter is if this had not happened in the first place and weapon cannot go back in time. as newtown is trying to cope and connecticut is trying to cope, do you feel the heartfelt feelings of the nation are translating into the literal help that you need either from the federal government or any other resources, is connecticut and is newtown getting what it needs at a policy level? >> no, it is getting what it needs right now. we have an overabundance of counselors who are on the ground. there's state troopers assigned

to every single family to make sure that they have what they need. but, also, to make sure that the media, which can tend to overstep its grounds, its bounds sometimes, is held in sort of the right level of advance. the question is what happens two or three weeks from now. we have more counselors than we needed to. but when the cameras leave and when the focus of a nation goes somewhere else, it's going to be our jobl to make sure that we have just as many resources three weeks from now or a month from now because the grief is only beginning. we had our two first funerals today. i was at one of them. there's going to be parents and teachers and kids who don't grab ahold of their grief, who deponedon't even realize what they saw for another few weeks. this morning, noah pozner's funeral, his twin sister was there. and you can tell that she, like probably hundreds of other kids at that school, haven't yet even come to grips with that loss. we're going to need a lot of help and resources three weeks, three months three years from now, not just right now.

>> i wonlder how you feel at this juncture right now in your own life. i mean, you've gone from spending six years in the house in a very hard fought campaign for the u.s. senate. you've been e leblgted senator elect in connecticut. you're going to be moving into that upper house in congress. you're moving into a time in your life where you're going to represent this entire state and you're moving into a policy role where you're one of one hundred people. it's a very powerful position to affect policy. do you feel constructive about what policy can do? do you feel hopeless about this at this point? how do you feel what you're about to do in your life given what the challenges are in your home district. >> yeah, i mean, clearly, mid priority is a new u.s. senator has just changed over night. i'm going to make it my mission to help lead the policy conversation on how we make sure that this doesn't happen again. or even if it happens that the det and destruction is limited in a way that we couldn't here today. so, yeah, from a personal

perspective, i'm going to be leading a grieving process and leading a recovery process. i was at a congregational church service in newtown on sunday morning. i can't tell you the number of people who even now, only 48 hours after that death and destruction grabbed me and said make sure this doesn't happen again. go to work. and i think it's going to take those of us that represent connecticut a few more days than everybody else to join this national conversation. but i think we're going to find out that there was some pretty easy policy steps, whether it's on guns or addressing a culture of violence. that could have at least created a less-likely environment for something like this to happen. the tipping point should have happened a long time ago. we don't need a national conversation. we need national action and i'm going to be part of that debate for probably the majority of my first term in the united states snat. >> congressman and senator elect, chris murphy of connecticut, thank you for finding the time to talk to us tonight in the middle of all of

this. i really appreciate it. >> thanks, rachel. >> thanks. all right, back in august, a white supremist shot and killed four others in a temple in oak creek, wisconsin. the police chief of that town joins us in just a few minutes. don't miss this. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could switchgrass in argentina, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa, and the aerospace industry in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses

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nchtsz on a sunday morning this last august, the suburban town of oak creek wisconsin was devastated by a mass shooting at its temple. last week, the oak creek wisconsin chief of police attended a national conference about how to prevent mass shootings from happening. chief john edwards from oak creek joins us early. that's next. ♪ [ male announcer ] campbell's green bean casserole. it's amazing what soup can do can i still ship a gift in time for christmas? yeah, sure you can. great. where's your gift? uh... whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. ship fedex express by december 22nd for christmas delivery.

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today, the white house called gun violence a complex problem that will require a complex solution. this afternoon, nbc news reports that president obama met with white house staff, with vice president biden and with cabinet members to talk about ways the nation and the administration could respond to the newtown massacre. yesterday, the president traveled to newtown where he met with emergency responders and the families of the sandy hook elementary school victims. last night, addressed at an inter-faith vigil. the speech lasted about 18 minutes. each of the big three networks broke into their normal programming last night to carry

it, including nbc which had to cut into the broadcast of sunday night football to carry the speech. the president opened his speech by quoting scripture. he was trying to protect the stun stoounts. the president slowly read out the names of each of the 20 children. the president called to action saying he would use whatever power this office holds to work on building the kind of public policy that will prevent something like this from ever happening again. but even as president obama was pledging to do whatever it takes to prevent another mass shooting, the president acknowledged last night how many mass shootings we have endured as a country. >> since i've been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shooters. fourth time we've had survivors.

the fourth time we've consoled the families of victims. and in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of vick ti victims, many of them children in small towns and in big cities all across america. victims whose, much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. we can't tolerate this anymore. these tragedies must end. and to end them, we must change. no single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

but that can't be an excuse for an action. surely, we can do better than this. if there's even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief that's visited tucson and aurora and oak creek and newtown and communities from columbine to blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try. >> the president last night referencing not only his own experiences during his presidency, addressing a grieving nation after a mass shooting. but, also, the number of times that previous presidents have had to do that before him. >> you're all left with siring memories and scars and unanswered questions. there has to be healing.

there have to be answers. and for those things that will not heal or cannot be answered, you have to learn to go on with your lives. i hope you have been comforted by the caring not only of your neighbors, but of your country and people from all around the world. all america has looked and listened with shared grief and enormous affection and admiration for you. we have been learning along with you. a lot about ourselves and our responsibleties as parents and citizens. >> it's impossible to make sensz of such violence and suffering. those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate.

they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. now they're gone and they leave behind grieving families and grieving classmates and a grieving nation. >> mass shootings are not a new phenomenon in our country. if it seems like the worst of them are happening more frequently these days, it's because that's true. just over the course of the past four years, during the presidency of barack obama, before newtown, there was also rural alabama where a man went on a shooting rampage in 2009 killing ten people, including several of his own family members. binghamton new york, a service member in 2009 killing 13 people. and then where gabbiegi frksz ford was wounded. 12 people were shot in aurora colorado and 58 people were shot and injured. and, again, this year, oak creek wisconsin, six people gunned down at a temple.

president obama acknowledged that history yesterday in his address to the nation. from the site in the latest 06 a def statingly long series. in trying to console the country and make sense of what happened, the president has ak hcknowledg that he has done this before and other presidents have done this before him. and is there anyway in which that can help? >> as a nation, we have a sickening amount of experience with mass shootings. and that is its own indictment of us as a nation. but is there anything from that horrible experience that can teach us how to try to handle it now that it has happened again. is there anything from this long, awful, always unimaginable experience that we have as a country, that we should have learned from, that we should have learned how to stop this from happening by now? joining us now is chief john edwards. he is the chief of police in oak creek wisconsin where four months ago six people were killed at a temple.

thank you for being here. it's nice to have you here, sir. >> thank you for having me. >> with the nation's eyes on newtown now, with our national heart ache for that town right now, i have to ask you how oak creek is doing and during your own version of this disaster and now four months down the road. >> it brings back a lot of memories and things that we went through. our temple held a vigil last night, which was attended by many citizens of our city. and they put out candles for every victim in newtown. i called there myself today and talked to some of the dispatch personnel and talked about some of the things they went through and very similar to ours and left a message for the chief. i knew how busy he would be and what he'd be going through. so there's no way i wanted to interrupt anything he's doing. doing. but it did bring back a lot of memories for a lot of people. >> one of the things that is under-appreciated sometimes in

people trying to understand the trauma of this is how much of the trauma is born by the first responderst, by not only the emergency medical pers they will, but by people who think they go into a live shooter situation, in the case of oak creek, it was a live shooter situation. i know you have a chief who was are wounded in the attack. is there anything you can do to try to manage the long-term impact on first responders in emergency personnel? >> you have to get a handle on that immediately. you have to g it immediately and take care of those individuals. i was in the hospital that night where my lieutenant was being operated on, and all the officers had come to the hospital. i looked in their eyes. you could see a lot of people were lost, didn't know what to do, didn't know what to think, and sometimes we put them aside and forget about them, and we should be -- our efforts should be into them in fixing them and make sure ghet through this because they're going to go through some things for the rest of their life, and it's going to scar them. some officers have never recovered from things like this, but we have to help them get the manufacturings they need to get

through this, and they need to know that what they're going through is normal and it's a process, and there's things that we can do to mitigate it and help them get through it, but everybody does it at their own pace and handles it differently, but we do need to deal with that. when they had to carry their lieutenant to a squad and rescue the affect that had on them, i can't imagine what those first responders went through. in newtown when they walked into those classrooms, don't even want to think about or try to picture it because i've seen enough similar situations and for it to be children would be just unimaginable. i do know that the department of justice has great victim witness services, and they were on the ground very early, and i'm sure they were in newtown helping those officers, first responders and the families. >> i know that just last week right before the newtown attack you were taking part in a national summit set up by homeland security department aimed at sharing ideas and trying to prevent these events but also dealing with them when they happen. is there anything that you learned there at that national summit, anything that you saw the federal government doing or

other communities doing that gave you cause for hope that interrupted what seemed to be this national pattern we have or getting better with coping with it when it does happen? >> absolutely there's hope. when we got together with it, there was a group of 25 to 30 people from all walks of different disciplines. we had professors, researchers, college faculty, k through 12 law enforcement, john hopkins facilitated this, and what we did is sat down and brainstorm and talked about the prevention. what can we do to look for and indicators to try to stop these things. after going through it, we found that the interdisciplinary things we deal with, sometimes we look at things in our own little glass house where i might assess it as a law enforcement within way where a mental health professional might aassess it in a different way or a school may look at it for a different reason, but we don't share that information, and we need to start sharing that information and combining that information to look for and identify people that we can intervene with and dem get them the help they need

before this happens. unfortunately when we talk about some of this, there are civil liberties involved, and we have to look at that. those are some of the things we talked about, and we talked about do we want to have a news conference where there's mass casualties, or do we want someone where they felt their mental health records were given up and people looked at them and they didn't like that fact, but it might have saved lives. this also includes, as far as i'm concerned, military records. the individual in our case was a former military, so those records should be available. there may have to be some laws that are changed. there was really good brainstorm and really no politics involved, and we came up with some good ideas and recommendations. >> chief john edwards of the oak creek, wisconsin, police. you tried to turn your community's experience and your own experience into something constructive that the nation could learn from, something we're all grateful for. thank you, sir. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> all right. there's a lot going on in politics news specifically that has not been getting its usual amount of coverage because of the ongoing story out of newtown.

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rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. today's news for obvious reasons was dominated by the one big story in the country, the mass shooting in newtown, connecticut, but there are important news items to get to tonight. the first is the passing today of a genuine american hero, senator daniel of hawaii. as long as the state of hawaii has been a state, it has been represented in congress by daniel, but it is his life before that, before his time in congress, which is a life that reads like fiction and that earned him legendary status. he was there at pearl harbor. after witnessing that attack on our country, he tried to serve the united states in the military, but not only was he told that he couldn't, he was labelled an enemy alien by the united states government.

ultimately even after that dan inyoye. during a firefight he was shot in the stomach, but even after being shot, he led his platoon against a nest of machine gunners that were perched on a ridge in italy. during that attack, he had his right arm shattered by german gunfire. he still managed to destroy the german encampment by snatching a grenade from that destroyed arm and throwing the grenade toward the enemy position taking it out and earning himself in the process the medal of honor. dan inhoye became the second longest serving senator in u.s. history, and at the time of his death he was third in the lane of succession behind the vice president and the speaker of the house. senator daniel inouye's office said he died of airportor complications. he was 88 years old. second item you should know about in today's news, outside of the news from newtown,

connecticut, is what seems like the inevitability now that the next united states secretary of state is going to be massachusetts democratic senator john kerry. nbc news has been able to confirm that senator kerry will be nominated for that job by president obama likely sometime this week. senator kerry is not expected to face significant opposition in the senate. if he does become secretary of state, that, of course, would mean a special election in massachusetts for his senate seat. that has to happen 145 to 160 days after the seat becomes vacant. one of the mamz rising to the top of the list is a potential john kerry replacement in the senate is vicky kenny. vicky kennedy, the widow of the late senator ted kennedy. asked by local news outlets whether she might be up for this job, a spokeswoman for vicky kennedy said, "we have no comment on this at this time." in other words, stay tuned. finally, another state that has just dealt with what massachusetts is contemplating right now, the prospect of replacing a long-time senator,

is the state of south carolina. today south carolina governor nikky haley announced she's decided to fill senator jim demint's soon vacated seat with republican congressman tim scott. tim scott was elected to the house in the tea party wave in 2010, so he hasn't been there long. he will be the first african-american and senator of the state of south carolina has ever had. he will be the first african-american senator from the south, period, since the post civil war reconstruction era. big news stories like what happened in connecticut, of course, tend to cast a shadow on all the other news out there, and understandably so, but there was lots of other news out there today. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. have a great night. on a typical day in america 33 people are murdered with guns. on a typical day in connecticut no one is murdered with guns. in a typical year here in newtown, connecticut, no one is murdered with a gun, but newtown

has now proved to anybody who didn't already know it that the worst american way of death, mass murder, really can happen anywhere. >> reality set in a bit today in newtown, connecticut, a town that laid two 6-year-old boys to rest. >> funerals were held for jack pinto and noah poznor. >> they began at 1:00 toted. >> svrss are planned for tuesday. >> you try to feel their pain, but you can't. you try to find some words that you hope will be adequate knowing that they'll be inadequate. >> we have begun processing the sxefd analyzing the evidence. >> sandy hook elementary could be a crime scene for months. >> we've seized it under search warrants, and we're going to hold those locations until we've completed our work. >> school districts across the country have been boosting security. >> we're going to do our best to secure